Oh Rats!

Oh Rats!

Oh Rats!

By Nathan Head

As an exterminator I have learned a thing or two about rats. One, people hate them; two, they want them gone. In writing this article I wanted to convey my personal experience as someone who has been dealing with these guys for a long time. My first time running into a rat was when I was a kid. I can remember walking down the stairs into my basement to deliver a load of dirty clothes to the hamper next to the washer. As I walked along the floor and over the towels that were ready to be loaded into the washer I remember the sinking feeling I had when my bare foot stepped on something fuzzy and warm and made a screech. “MOM! I stepped on something!” I screamed. It was my mom who first introduced me to pest control when she explained to me that it was a rat. To this day I still can remember almost everything about that encounter from the smell of the basement to the time of day it happened. I am almost sure that you can relate if you have any experience close to mine. I have felt the stress, fear and hatred towards rats from the clients. Now it’s my profession to deal with these unwanted house guests.

Here are some simple thoughts about rats that I would like to share with you.

With rats its nothing personal.

They are not trying to ruin your life or make you look bad, they are opportunists and will move in where they can.

With rats, one is enough.

Due to their high rate of breeding, dealing with an infestation early may save you lots $$$ in the long run.

With rats you don’t have to be rich or poor to have them.

It’s not a rich or poor related issue, it’s a location to rats issue. If they are in your neighborhood then you may have to deal with them.

With rats it’s a food and shelter issue.

Thank you for reading.

— Your friend in the Pest Control world

With the increased focus on urban farming our industry has seen a dramatic increase in the number of rats in and around homes that have the beloved urban chicken coop. The chickens are not the problem. It is the food they eat and scatter around that attracted the rats. Bird feeders and squirrel feeders or not innocent either.

“Unless you are able to see through floors, it’s hard to know what’s going on your crawlspace. As one of my clients found out, the damp musty odor in her house was a problem that started months previous to her call to our company. Rats had invaded her crawlspace to find a warm inviting home with a great nesting place. Her call to me was in reaction to a decaying dead rat in the crawl space. We were able to exterminate the rat population, restore the crawlspace back to a sanitary, healthy part of her home and maintain the aftercare through scheduled follow-ups to essentially keep her home on lock down. NO RATS = HAPPY HEALTHY HOMES and a happy healthy you.”